Tag Archives: Sinusitis

Nasal Irrigation and How It Helped with my Sinus Problems

This post is one of a series about the ongoing health issues I have had recently beginning in February 2011.

Probably the most useful thing I’ve tried during my ongoing sinus problems has been Nasal Irrigation with a simple saline solution, and I have to say that I’m kicking myself because I nearly tried it pretty early on, but decided not to. I only started shortly before I went to see the Ear Nose and Throat specialist, who backed it up as the best solution for a lot of sinus problems. Interestingly it also parallels the advice that is routinely given out for helping children with colds, where again the medical profession recommends using a saline solution squirted up the nose to clear the nostrils.

At it’s simplest you can irrigate your nose by snorting water from your cupped hands, but it’s probably not very efficient. From there the next level up is perhaps the traditional neti pot which you fill with saline solution and pour into one nostril and out the other. There is a particular technique for doing this, which some people can master, and some people can’t.

Needless to say modern technology has produced a lot of modern versions of the neti pot which apply the saline solution by a number of techniques, and in the end I went for one of the more “gadgety” and expensive options and went for the SinuPulse Elite, but it does work remarkably well.

The basic principle is that you fill the water tank with distilled water (we have a nice little routine going of boiling the kettle, letting it cool and filling water bottles) and then add one of the premixed saline sachets. The device then pumps water up one nostril, and it drains out of the other, and then you reverse the process. It doesn’t take too long to do, and in effect cleans out the mucus that would otherwise end up dripping down my throat as part of my ongoing post nasal drip. It doesn’t stop my sinuses producing the mucus, but it deals with the results.

This brings me on to a little aside, if you’re a creationist, I’d love to know what you think God was thinking when he designed the human sinuses, because for a being that walks on two legs they are remarkably badly designed, indeed they work a lot better on an animal that walks on four legs… In particular one pair of sinuses drains from the top! This of course becomes quite important when you’re flushing your sinuses out with water, as I found initially when hours after having finished the process I’d bend over to pick something up and suddenly find water dripping out my nose. I’ve since got into the habit of bending over the bath after I’m done to get most of that water out.

It’s also interesting that even after blowing your nose quite how much extra mucus the Nasal Irrigation manages to flush out, and whilst the sinuses fill up again during the day, the whole process certainly keeps the worst under control.

Certainly there are competing products such as the Grossan Hydro Pulse, and simpler mechanical solutions, I’d certainly recommend the SinuPulse Elite as being a pretty straightforward solution to easily clearing out the gunk that has been clogging up my sinuses for months, as I said above, I’m just kicking myself I didn’t try it sooner!

A Note about Antibiotics and Sinus Infections

This post is one of a series about the ongoing health issues I have had recently beginning in February 2011.

As I mentioned previously over the past few months I have had probably the worst period of continuous illness I’ve ever experienced. A common feature across all of this period has been a continuous post nasal drip from my sinuses.

As with anybody, my first port of call when it seemed like these illnesses were going on a bit was my GP, after the initial sympathy routine they diagnosed a sinus infection, and followed what I have now discovered is the standard strategy, which is to prescribe a wide spectrum antibiotic, and when that doesn’t work, up the strength and length of the course. When that still didn’t work the diagnosis switched to allergies and I was prescribed antihistamines and a nasal steroid inhaler.

However the standard strategy really doesn’t help in the vast majority of cases one reason for this being pretty obvious – if you’re taking an oral antibiotic it struggles to reach an infection in your sinuses in any large capacity. Given that there are already concerns that the overprescription of antibiotics is leading to the rise of resistant bacteria and that in my case at least my already weakened immune system was further weakened by the several courses of antibiotics, leading to my second bout of norovirus this did start to point me in the direction of any other strategies for beating my sinus problems.

So what are the problems with taking a few antibiotics? How could they, in my case, make things worse? You can see the basic issue if you look at how they work. When a GP prescribes antibiotics, pretty well always he has no idea what bacteria you’re infected with, so a broad spectrum antibiotic is prescribed, i.e. it goes after everything. By way of an analogy, think of the infection as a terrorist cell infiltrating a town, in the town you also have defenders, who are trying, but failing to defend the town. Then in comes the help, which kills everything, including some of the defenders. Yes it defeats the invaders, but at the expense of collateral damage. An antibiotic is much the same, it comes in, but takes out more than just the infection, a normal healthy person can then recover, but repeated courses of antibiotics weaken your immune system. There are alternatives, Phage therapy was largely superseded by the discovery of antibiotics in western medicine, but targets specific bacteria with a specific virus, and is now being touted as a possible option as more and more antibiotic resistant bacteria develop, but we’re not there yet.

Just to be clear here, I’m not saying don’t ever take antibiotics, they certainly have a place, it’s more that I wasn’t really aware of the issues surrounding them before this bout of illness, and if, as evidence suggests they’re not going to be much help treating what I’ve got, I’d rather not waste my time taking them! So what have I done instead that has helped? More of that in subsequent posts.